Custom View not showing: no height, but still width

Question

In my current project I run into an dead end. My custom view, only created to show a specific color, won't show in the view of my emulator (although it seems to show up correctly in the editor of Eclipse) except if it had a minimum height, but then it only get this exact height. I want it to match_parent.

The problem might be that it is in the item layout of a list view.

That's the code of my Custom View:

import android.content.Context;
import android.content.res.Resources;
import android.content.res.TypedArray;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.graphics.Paint.Style;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class ColorView extends View {
    private int mColor;
    private Context mContext;
    private int width;
    private int height;

    public ColorView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
        mContext = context;
        TypedArray a = context.getTheme().obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.ColorView, 0, 0);

        try {
            mColor = a.getColor(R.styleable.ColorView_color, 0xFFFFFF);
        } finally {
            a.recycle();
        }
    }

    public void setColor(int hexColor) {
        mColor = hexColor;
        invalidate();
    }

    public void setColorFromResource(int resID) {
        mColor = mContext.getResources().getColor(resID);
        invalidate();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onSizeChanged(int w, int h, int oldw, int oldh) {
        super.onSizeChanged(w, h, oldw, oldh);
        Log.d("DEBUG", Integer.toString(w) + " " + Integer.toString(h));
        width = w;
        height = h;
    }

    @Override
    public void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        super.onDraw(canvas);
        canvas.drawColor(mColor);
        Log.d("DEBUG", "drawn");
    }
}

And a simplified version of my layout file:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:raabeapp="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.example.myapp"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/row_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" >

<com.example.myapp.ColorView
    android:id="@+id/status_view"
    android:layout_width="20dip"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
    android:layout_centerVertical="true"
    android:layout_marginRight="5dip"
    android:minHeight="50dp"
    raabeapp:color="#FF0000" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/hour_view"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_centerVertical="true"
    android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/status_view"
    android:text="1"
    android:textSize="@dimen/hour_textsize"
    android:width="70dp" />

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/text_hourtext"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_centerVertical="true"
    android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/hour_view"
    android:text="@string/hour_text"
    android:textSize="@dimen/hourtext_textsize" />

Answer 1

Ok, I figured out a workaround:
When I use a LinearLayout instead of a RelativeLayout I get the result I want.
It seems that the problem lies in the RelativeLayout. If someone knows why this is, or how I could still use a RelativeLayout I would be very interested. This answer does not provide a full solution, but in case someone runs into my problem it could provide a ugly workaround.

Answer 2

Use android:layout_height="match_parent" for your RelativeLayout.